Logorama Short - The Art Of Making Foley
The Idea...
In this project I created the foley for this small snippet from the short video Logorama by H5.
As this was my first foley project, the biggest hurdel at time time was being alone recording everything. I had to be creative because of the Covid-19 pandemic a the time, and all the recordings were made in house.
The Process...
To start, I used a technique called pre-production, where I imported the video to Pro Tools and created all the necessary tracks to the foley of the short film, thus recording small segments of "empty" audio in order to have a reference and a visual aid to be able to proceed with the recordings and make the synchronisms as efficiently as possible.
Considering that I was able to use some sound from an online sound library, it helped a bunch, because some sounds would be quite difficult to record given the pandemic situation in which I found myself at the time of recording this project.
I recorded the sound of Ronald McDonald character's car using my guitar, with the tremolo bar to de-tune the strings to give the effect of a car speeding up, and for the sound of the car slowing down, by reversing it with the reverse function of Pro Tools.
To make the sound of the police car doors opening and closing I recorded my dad's car with my phone, I made different recordings to make sure I had enough material, as some of the recordings had a lot of echo, I decided to record inside the car too.
The sound of the crashes between the various cars in the chase were achieved by punching on a carpet, pillows and by punching on a glass desk with some coins on top of it, to give a metallic sound to the recording.
For the wreckage coming out of the main character's van I dropped a bunch of screws, nuts and washers in my bedroom floor. The sound of the gun-clicks were made opening and closing a set of multi-tool pliers.
I felt that for certain type of foley, it was easier to make my own recordings than to use an already recorded sample from an online library, as this way, I had considerably more control over the final result.
For example, some of the interjections of the two characters dialog on the school bus were made with sounds I recorded with my mouth, including the sound of the bus doors and the cafe opening, as if it were the sound of a hydraulic opening the doors.
I also used a metal cup and spoon to make the sound of the traffic light changing color.
For the sound of the police tape being unwound by the character I used the strap of my guitar, initially I tried to use a belt, but as it was too soft of a surface and I couldn't capture enough sound coming out of it.
For the hand-shaped car with a phone, it was a fairly simple process, because I have a landline phone that has a function built-in to play a certain tone, like the one we hear when we hang up a call, thus giving a very interesting and realistic recording.
I also used the pedals of a video-game controller steering wheel to simulate Ronald pressing the brakes of his van before crashing.
The instrumental was recorded by me playing some riffs on my guitar.
To conclude, I used a library called Edward Ultimate SUITE, in kontakt, to simulate the characters' steps.
Final Thoughts...
It would be great in a future project to be able to record 100% of the foley for a short film or a movie like this, where it involves elements like breaking glass, helicopters, car crashes and guns firing, like in this short.
Foley's: Rodrigo Macedo
Recording, Mix and Master: Rodrigo Macedo
